You're well on your way to having a slew of unfinished games, just like me! Also, I love Auro's art ... yey.
Here's my thoughts on disabling romances:

Don't. Unless these things randomly happen, people can avoid them. If you make it an option, you're calling huge attention to it and making it worse than it already is. For instance, having a "turn sex scenes off" option would immediately make me think this is a porn game, and I should play when I'm horny, which would then cause me to rush through the story for the sex scenes. "Turn incest off" would also make me think that the incest is a huge, unavoidable part of the game and I would go "bleeeurrgh". If it's just there, and people know what they're getting into, they can avoid it. Make the game as a whole the way you want it to be, and then just place warnings before downloads. I, too, was going to go the "toggle anything questionable off in the options" route, and then I realized, I'm not making my game for those people ... You can never please everybody. So start with yourself, and then your target audience. If you have to take out huge chunks of your game for other demographics, then consider whether or not your game's integrity is intact if you do. Is it the same experience? The same game? TWO CENTS!

@Aleema: I've considered all those things, really. Of course I'm writing the story the way I want and I'd like it if people could just play the whole thing the way I intended. I'd never include an option to "turn sex scenes off" (even if I wrote sex scenes, lol), for example. I probably won't end up disabling all the romantic scenes, because the more I think about it, the less I like the prospect.

That said, I also understand that there are a lot of people who are extreeeemely squicky when it comes to incest. And yeah, it's avoidable, but I think that some lines that seem nice and normal when said to a brother can be interpreted totally differently when the brother is a romantic prospect. People might pick options that end up leading to an incest route without realizing it because the option seems innocuous enough on its own and if I make it TOO OBVIOUS, well that's just jarring and out of character. If I can at least disable those endings/points from being accumulated, I can keep a lot of the dialogue the same without having things end in a way that would freak (a lot of) people out and I feel like the story would still be pretty much the same.

You are right, though, that having the option to turn it off will just draw attention to it and make it more of a big deal. D: I guess I'll have to think on this some more.

Woooooo~ WIP thread. Very exciting! The story sounds pretty amazing how you put it and I'm really eager to find out how it goes. If only I wasn't so tired D: I'll have to get super organised so I have time for it.

If you let me do a incestuous romance scene I will love you for ever. Though it is your choice of course

Auro-Cyanide wrote:Woooooo~ WIP thread. Very exciting! The story sounds pretty amazing how you put it and I'm really eager to find out how it goes. If only I wasn't so tired D: I'll have to get super organised so I have time for it.

If you let me do a incestuous romance scene I will love you for ever. Though it is your choice of course

And here I thought that Amamiyacest would be gross to you, so I wasn't planning on asking for any CGs for it or anything, haha. GOOD TO KNOW YOU'RE ON BOARD. I should ask about these things instead of assuming!

A WIP thread and I'm already emotionally attached to the characters… Ahh, I want to bring Masaharu back! I want to! He's already my favorite (I have a thing for sporty types) although I also thought Yukinari is adorable. The opportunity to play as two different characters is also very interesting, as the option of paid content! Maybe it's why I've not been involved in indie gaming for long, but this idea is great, as I think I've already mentioned in the Machina Jewel topic. I really think the plot's got a lot to offer, and playing it from two different perspectives looks incredible.

@Arcanum: Awww that makes me really happy to hear! c: (err, read?) There's less characters in this and I don't have to worry about like 320472834 personality variations like I do in Machina Jewel, so this story will be veeeeeery character-driven. (well, even moreso than usual) I've tried to give these guys a lot of depth so they feel like real people, so I hope that they're relatable and interesting.

Masaharu gets to be the first you bring back. You can probably guess that the other victims = the rest of the cast. The story does not end if one of them dies and you can't save them, though--it keeps going, only that character is gone from then on and there are ramifications later. :c

Playing as Natsume is entirely different in almost every way from playing as Shuuki, so it's really like getting two games in one. :3 I hope that players who really get into the story/characters enjoy playing as Natsume and getting a totally different perspective on things.

Anyway, I'm glad you like the idea! :3 It might take a while to complete, but I hope you like BCM when it's all done in very early 2012 or so.

Auro-Cyanide wrote:Woooooo~ WIP thread. Very exciting! The story sounds pretty amazing how you put it and I'm really eager to find out how it goes. If only I wasn't so tired D: I'll have to get super organised so I have time for it.

If you let me do a incestuous romance scene I will love you for ever. Though it is your choice of course

And here I thought that Amamiyacest would be gross to you, so I wasn't planning on asking for any CGs for it or anything, haha. GOOD TO KNOW YOU'RE ON BOARD. I should ask about these things instead of assuming!

It sounds even better when you pitch it. Plus there were a couple things that I didn't know about that really spice up the story.

Oh, I'm so onboard with that. Those kind of things are really interesting to me, the complexity and delicate nature of it make it fascinating and frankly that makes it more fun to do. Just because people are uncomfortable with a subject doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about it. It probably means you should talk about it more.

Auro-Cyanide wrote:It sounds even better when you pitch it. Plus there were a couple things that I didn't know about that really spice up the story.

Oh, I'm so onboard with that. Those kind of things are really interesting to me, the complexity and delicate nature of it make it fascinating and frankly that makes it more fun to do. Just because people are uncomfortable with a subject doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about it. It probably means you should talk about it more.

I do so love pitching things. XD By the way, did you get my last email? Because I kept getting some weird "YOUR MAIL COULD NOT BE SENT" error. 0_o The email wasn't super important, just basically telling you that I made this thread, but. D: It's weird because I used the same email I've been replying to you back and forth with... Anyway I'll be filling plotholes and setting some more story points in stone this week, so I'll let you know all those juicy details to see what you think. ;D

Oh good! I like to go for more challenging kinds of storylines and themes, personally. I already have some other "taboo" ideas for that other project of ours HAHA I have to keep stopping myself and telling myself to work on these two projects only! But yeah I will be handling the incest as tastefully as possible... Well, tasteful for a BL series, haha. I can't avoid all the cliches that go along with yaoi.

To anyone else reading this, don't get tooooo attached to these characters. I have a bad habit of treating my OCs very badly. That got toned down (a tad) in Machina Jewel because Airi is a fluffy person, but I think BCM will have a lot of bad endings and very dark and twisted storylines.

A year ago, I wrote a story centered on Natsume and Yukinari for Shousetsu Bang*Bang called "Happiness Is". Though I say it's centered on Natsume and Yukinari, all of the characters listed in the first post make appearances. My writing style is rather different now and the game takes place in a slightly different universe, but if anyone wants a glimpse into what BCM/its characters are like, you can read it? Part 1 + Part 2! Any comments on that would be appreciated. :3 The story has a very cheesy happy ending because B*B requires happy endings. None of the few happy endings in BCM are going to be this cheesy. XD

Huh, weird. I didn't get it, though I have been getting mail. Something must have go wrong somewhere, though I wouldn't have a clue what. Of course I would love to hear anything you have come up with. So far it is so good that I want to start living and breathing it.

I love taboo stuff! I'm attracted to it like a bee to honey. It is always interesting and gives you something to think about. It is generally fresh and exciting because you haven't heard it a thousand times. But you are right, one (or two ) projects at a time.

To anyone else reading this, don't get tooooo attached to these characters. I have a bad habit of treating my OCs very badly. That got toned down (a tad) in Machina Jewel because Airi is a fluffy person, but I think BCM will have a lot of bad endings and very dark and twisted storylines.

Well I just sent you a test email, so hopefully it goes through. ): What the heck is going on? I haven't re-configured my mail client or anything...

Awww o/////o. It'd be great if everyone likes BCM as much as we do. XD Although I told my brother I was making a BL game and he side-eyed me like crazy, so. Can't please 'em all, I suppose.

Well, my partner for MJ has been really busy and told me last night she probably won't be able to work on MJ that much for quite some time, so this gives me some more space to work on BCM and not feel guilty about it. If this trend continues, I might finish BCM before MJ... Anyway, I started reading "Game of Thrones" last night and there was quite a bit of incest in it, so maybe the topic isn't as terribly taboo as I thought. I mean, VNs are fiction, after all, so people can usually distance themselves/their own moral code from it? Sort of?

My email address doesn't like you anymore D: I sent one to see if you can receive mine at least.

I'm not telling my brother. All he gets is 'Not a game for you' from me. Though I do show him some of the art. I'm pretty sure he'd give me that sideways look as well XD

God damn real life. It is getting in the way of our game making!
I don't think incest as a topic is too bad, I just think people have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to it, especially because it is condemned by society (for good reason, but people tend to demonise those types of things) and it is featured a in erotic material. I think if it is a part of a story and isn't simply the sole component, people will be more open to it and take it in more. Some people are still not going to like it, but people don't like a lot of things. You write for the people who will enjoy it, not those who won't anyway. I think there will be people who secretly play through though

I received it, but I guess you're not getting my replies. ): I tried emailing you from the actual Phoenix Mail website to see if that would make a difference... Don't tell me we have to resort to PMs! D:

Ah brothers, always good at not understanding the fangirl psyche in the least. XD

Seriously! D: Yeah, I guess it'd be silly of me to try to change my story just to please some naysayers, so I'll just keep writing BCM the way I intended to. The more I think about it, the more I want to just not include any "turn ____ off" options at all. I think most fans of BL/yaoi are okay with incest on some level, I mean, just look at how much twincest fanfiction and whatnot there is? XD As long as the game is interesting and the purpose of the game is not "GET YOUR BROTHER TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU", I think it'll be okay. We'll just have to make the Amamiyacest CGs really awesome so people just *have* to play and get them. ;D /evil

Oh yeah, I wrote this fic about Shuuki a few months ago: http://sonicpunch.livejournal.com/6711.html I guess this is closer to what the game is going to be like since this fic is from Shuuki's POV (sort of) and is more recent.